Feminist Leadership: Building Nurturing Academic Communities

Abstract

American higher education currently faces "harsh realities" (Altbach, 1999). "It has been argued," accordingto Altbach, "that higher education's golden age - the period of strong enrollment growth, increasing researchbudgets, and general public support - is over" (p. 272). There is a wave of change on the horizon. "Neverbefore have we experienced the kind of change currently rocking our society" (Zahorski & Cognard, 1999,p. 2). Preparing our academic institutions for this change "promises to be perhaps the greatest of the manychallenges in the decades ahead" (p. 2). Some of the changes that currently challenge higher educationinclude "fiscal austerity, downsizing, heavy faculty workloads, underprepared students, a growing cohort ofnomadic adjunct faculty, a tenure system under fire, [and] a demand for greater accountability andproductivity from a disenchanted public" (p. 2). Perhaps the greatest challenge at present is the changingface of American higher education due to the influx of new populations of students. In parts of the country,p eople of different nationalities, cultural identities, and races are sharing academic spaces creating hybrididentities, new languages, and new academic cultures (Association for the Study of Higher Education,2006). Policies, institutional practices, teaching methods, methods of assessment, and leadership will allneed to change to better serve constituents in these evolving academic communities.